[DobDobDob (Ron)]

LOL good one TrevorW, you will no doubt run a vast empire someday. It's actually quite legal providing you don't make a profit out of it and that you do it in the interests of education, the Act has Fair Usage exceptions to cover this and at the end of the day, companies that went out of business say 60 years ago are hardly going to worry about it anyway.

For example, in radios I have some 1940 vintage radios were I was lucky enough to be able to source the schematic and in some cases a 'sort of' users manual. I intend to try and fix them up, and the fact that I was fortunate enough to acquire the paperwork is an absolute godsend. I got these from the net and it is so important that someone took the time to actually reproduce it on the net, otherwise the radio would be useless.

I think that real honest people know the difference between a site that provides information for genuine educational and hobbyist reasons and one that is blatantly trying to make money and encroaches on the copyright owners ability to earn income.

Instruction manuals are given freely with the purchase of the device and are not sold (in the main) anyway, so there is precious little income that you are duding anyone out of, plus most of the companies don't exist these days anyway.

So given the fact that you can lawfully do this, plus the fact that it is morally right and good and doesn't hurt anyone, there is no need to go underground. If any legitimate company objected to you doing their job for them, you could argue it in court or simply delete it from your inventory.